


Which Direction We Are Going

by AreYouSittingComfortably



Series: There's No Earthly Way of Knowing [2]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Backstory, Being Lost, Character Development, Developing Relationship, Falling In Love, Gen, Hate, Loss, Love, Parents & Children, References to Abuse, Responsibility, Revenge, Romance, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-16
Updated: 2013-04-21
Packaged: 2017-12-08 16:23:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 13,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/763479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AreYouSittingComfortably/pseuds/AreYouSittingComfortably
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Emma is sick of all the bad things that have been happening to her and her lack of choice. She, Henry, and Hook are forced to jump overboard to escape Cora, and find themselves washed up on a strange shore. Not only is she forced to help save Hook’s life, but now she’s also forced to accept his help if she and Henry are to survive, as there seems to be no way off the island. With his mother acting like a child, it’s left to Henry to act as the go between and try and force her to accept something that she refuses to see… again. That before Hook, there was Killian, and before him there was… Latest chapters: how Peter became Pan, how Hook ended up in Neverland (the first time), how Jefferson helped them, how Rumple took more than just Hook's hand and his love, and what happened when Hook and Baelfire met in Neverland.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Battered And Bruised

**Author's Note:**

> This is Part Two of There’s No Earthly Way of Knowing. It stands alone, but you might first want to read Part One: Which Way The River’s Flowing, in the final chapter of which we will (eventually, I promise!) see the battle between Cora & Regina, Tamara (& Greg), and the Charmings (and the rest of the town), in the midst of which Rumplestiltskin returns to try and save his son. In the fray, Hook snatches Henry, leaving Emma no choice but to abandon the fight and follow her son onto Hook’s ship. Unfortunately Cora follows, and when Emma refuses to hand Henry over, accusing Hook of betraying her, Cora rips out Hook’s heart, demanding that he kill Emma. He resists, and Cora is on the verge of killing him when Henry saves the day by swinging the wheel of the ship hard, and knocking her off her feet. She drops Hook’s heart and Henry grabs it, and the three of them jump overboard. Cora screams in fury and evaporates in a cloud of purple smoke, the storm vanishing with her, leaving an abandoned ship. Emma, Henry, and Hook have vanished...

_As Henry hits the water, Hook’s heart slips from his hand. He tries to kick down after it, but it’s beyond his reach. Henry watches the pirate’s heart sinking into the depth, helpless._

_Impossibly, a hand reaches out and grabs it._

_A flick of a tail, a trail of bubbles, and a glimpse of flowing red hair, and Hook’s heart is back in the boy’s hand._

**\----**

Emma had no idea where they were, or how long they’d been in the water. Hook must have hit his head as he tumbled overboard because he was unconscious and she had to swim pushing him along in front of her. It was dark, but the sea was calm and she could see the shore ahead, not far away now. Henry bobbed alongside her, apparently at ease in the water. She silently thanked Regina for making sure the kid knew how to swim.

They finally reached the beach and Emma was surprised at how soft the sand was, the sound of palm trees rustling overhead. The air was warm and heavy, wrapping around her like a blanket, and she realised they were in the tropics. _How on earth did we get here?_ she wondered.

She and Henry started to drag Hook up the beach, beyond the tide mark. He was still unconscious but Henry could see his heart beating and glowing in his hand. 

“We have to put it back.” he said.

“Why?” asked Emma, almost without thinking “It’s safer where it is.” _If we have his heart, we can control him. Keep Gold safe. Keep ourselves safe._

“You don’t mean that! That’s something Regina would do. You still don’t trust him?”

“No.”

“But he tried to save our lives! You saw him resisting Cora.”

“He’s a pirate, Henry! The one thing he wants more than anything else in the world is to kill your grandfather! The only person he’s looking out for is himself. He helped Cora before, how do we know he wasn’t doing it again, won't do it again?”

“But he told you to jump, to get away from him. He was trying to protect you, protect me!” Henry looked at his mother curiously. Why couldn’t she see this? It was like getting her to believe in the curse all over again. She just wouldn’t let herself see what was right in front of her. A man turning to wood. A bad man becoming good. “You have to put it back.” He placed Hook’s heart in her hands.

She held it like it as though it was something dangerous, as though it would burn her. “Why me? I don’t know how it’s done.”

“You have magic. It will show you what to do.”

“I don’t know if there’s any magic here.”

“Why can’t you just believe?” Henry sighed in frustration.

Emma was exhausted, this was all too much. She glanced down at Hook’s heart in her hand, holding it like it was cursed. She half expected it to be shrivelled, rotten, dark, but it glowed brightly and pulsed strongly in her hand, just as she’d seen Aurora’s do. Maybe hearts don’t show our deeds, our wounds, she thought. But when she dared to look at it properly, she started to see the fissures and scars and dark bruises within it.

It was too much. She didn’t want this power, this responsibility. She didn’t want to be holding anyone’s heart in her hands. But once again, she didn’t have a choice...

Emma took a deep breath, and positioning herself beside Hook, thrust it back into his chest. There was a moment of resistance, as though his body was trying to reject it, and then it slipped back into place. With a gasp of pain, Hook’s eyes flew open, Emma’s hand still on his chest.

He started coughing up seawater and Emma helped him onto his side.

“Thank you” he said, trying to smile but only succeeding in coughing up more seawater.

“Don’t thank me, thank Henry. He’s the one who rescued your heart.” The words came out automatically. Emma sank down on the sand beside him, profoundly shocked by the whole experience, relieved and apprehensive at the same time. Another damned thread binding them together.

“Thank you, Henry” coughed Hook.

“You’re welcome." he smiled, "You saved my Mom!”

“Did I? I thought she just saved me.” he said, watching Emma curiously, unable to read her expression.

“Well then, I guess we’re even.” She got up abruptly, turning her back on him so he couldn’t see the confusion she felt sure must be showing on her face.

Hook frowned, but said nothing.

Henry went to give her a hug, and she held him tightly, “Hey kid.” she said, brushing away the tears that were starting to well up in her eyes.

Hook turned away, embarrassed to be intruding on a private moment between mother and son, but it didn’t escape his notice that it was Emma who needed comfort, and Henry who was providing it. He slowly managed to push himself up off the sand, his hand flying to his chest as he winced in pain.

Emma took a moment to compose herself, before turning to him. “Where are we?” she asked “’Cause I’m pretty sure this isn’t Maine.”

“No,” he said slowly, looking around. His eye caught something a little way along the beach and he drew in his breath in surprise, “Well, this _is_ interesting…”

“Do you recognise this place, Hook?” she asked sharply.

He winced again, but this time at hearing his moniker, “Killian, Emma. It’s Killian. A few moments ago you had my heart in your hands. Surely we’re passed the whole Hook thing, now?” Emma didn’t respond and he sighed in exasperation.

“Yes, I’ve been here before.” He started up the beach, with Henry eagerly following, Emma trailing behind. “I never thought I’d see this place again…” he turned to Emma “We’ll be safe here. Cora will never find this place.” His expression sobered. “But we could be here a while.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, alarmed, “How long is a while?”

“That depends.”

“On what?”

“Look, Emma, I don’t know how this place works. It’s one of the strangest lands I’ve ever been in. It’s like a gateway between other worlds, except there’s no portal. It just kind of exists on the margins of other lands. It’s like a safe haven, a place you wash up to, quite literally. It provides you with everything you need…”

“Like the Room of Requirement!” cried Henry, excitedly.

“The what?” Hook looked confused.

“In the Harry Potter books… oh, never mind.” He said realising how long that would take to explain. “It’s a place that provides the things you need, as long as you know what to ask for – beds, bathrooms, weapons, whatever it is, you only have to ask.”

“Treasure?” Hook asked

Henry looked uncertain.

“Well, it sounds lovely, but unfortunately that’s not quite how it works here. I meant this place will provide us with what we need to survive – food, water, shelter, but we’ll need to work for it, need to build it, catch it, and so on.”

“Oh. Like camping!”

“Exactly.”

Emma groaned, thinking back to her time in The Enchanted Forest. “Great.”

“Look, this is where I camped last time I was here!” Hook gestured to the remains of a small shelter, and what looked like it might once have been a fire pit. “We’ll be safe here ‘til morning.” he said. “Get some sleep and we’ll start rebuilding tomorrow.”

“Whoa. Wait. Start rebuilding? How long are we going to be here, exactly?”

“Well, that’s the problem, love. I don’t know. It depends.”

“Yes, you said that before!” Emma was tired and exasperated “But what _on_?”

“Which one of us brought us here, and what they were running away from.”

“Well, that’s obvious isn’t it? We were all running away from Cora because she was trying to kill us!”

“Aye, that we were, but,” Hook hesitated “That’s not necessarily how it works. Last time, I thought I was escaping from a witch, but it was really something else, and it took me a long time to figure that out.”

“How long?”

“Seven moons.”

“Seven months?! You were here for seven _months_?!”

Hook looked sheepish. “It was quite a hard lesson, but I learned it eventually.” He could see Emma wanted answers, but he wasn’t going to let her ask any more questions. “Get some sleep. You’re exhausted. We can talk more in the morning.”


	2. Not Quite Paradise

The sun was high in the sky when Emma woke. She could see the impression in the sand beside her, where Henry had spent the night, but her son was nowhere to be seen.

“Henry? Henry?” she cried, rising swiftly.

“Here, Mom!” she saw two figures way down the beach, gathering driftwood, one of them waving. She tried to head towards them but her head spun. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had anything to eat or drink and she was more than a little woozy. A freshly cracked coconut beside her slowly came into focus. She drank the liquid gratefully and tore at the meat inside.

Henry bounded over grinning. “Great isn’t it? Killian showed me how to crack it.”

Emma frowned. She felt like she was trapped in some kind of chocolate commercial where the beautiful woman was alone on an island with an impossibly handsome man with the body of an Olympic swimmer, who obligingly climbed trees and cracked open coconuts for her, before sweeping her into his strong arms.

Except that she was stuck on this godforsaken island with an untrustworthy pirate, with a hook for a hand, and a son who seemed to have forgotten the man’s blood lust towards his paternal grandfather.  And to cap it all off, here was that very same pirate standing over her grinning. Paradise? Not.

“Morning, lass!” he said cheerfully.

She groaned. _Why do this to me?_ she pleaded silently to the heavens.

\----

The days passed and Hook began to rebuild his camp. Painstakingly re-thatching the roof and repairing the sleeping platform. Not an easy task with one hand, but the knife he always kept tucked in his boot helped with cutting canes and vines, and it was surprising what he could accomplish. He led Emma and Henry to a stream where they could find water, using hollowed out coconuts as jugs. He laid traps for birds and pigs, and showed Henry how to weave fish and crab traps out of palm leaves.  Emma was torn between admiration at how resourceful he was, and fury at being trapped in limbo with him, of all people.

Those first few nights, as she cooked the fish Hook caught over a fire, he began to tell them stories. Ostensibly, he was telling Henry, who begged to hear tales of his adventures, but there were times when Emma was sure he was speaking directly to her. She’d always been aware of his flair for drama, how much he loved an audience, but now she began to realise the genuine pleasure he got from telling a tale. Henry sat fascinated as he recounted encounters with magical creatures and searching for hidden treasure. As the nights passed, she found herself beginning to relax and enjoy the sound of his voice enthralling her son with his stories. Every so often her lie detector would go off and she’d look up to find him looking at her with a twinkle in his eye.

She wondered what it would have been like if Neal hadn’t betrayed her: if they’d stayed together and Henry had grown up with his father. They could have sat together like this, round a camp fire, listening to Neal’s stories, which were surely as interesting as Hook’s. The thought crossed her mind that Neal had spent most of his life running away from things, whereas Hook had spent most of his, running towards things, the wrong things perhaps, but nonetheless... she wasn’t at all comfortable with that thought and pushed it away.

Every night Henry begged for stories of Neverland but Hook kept putting him off. “Maybe tomorrow” he’d say, or “another night”. Emma suspected Henry wanted to hear those stories for the same reason Hook wasn’t ready to tell them – Neal.

“Don’t be a tease!’ she chided one night, as Henry started drifting off to sleep, but Hook merely flashed that trademark smirk of his, the one that told her he could read her like an open book.

“Are you familiar with the story of Scheherazade?” he asked.

She said nothing. She had no idea what he was talking about, but she wasn’t going to let him know that, so, feigning a yawn, she got up and carried Henry to the edge of the camp and settled down to sleep.

\----

Next morning, Emma asked Henry about Scheherazade.  “Is he another character in your book?”

“Mom!” Henry exclaimed in dismay, “She, not he! You don’t know the story of _One Thousand and One Nights_? The king who took a new wife every night and beheaded them all the next day but he suspected they'd been unfaithful?” Emma shook her head,so Henry continued. “One night Sheherazade was brought to him and she started to tell him stories, but when dawn came she hadn’t finished. He had to keep her alive another day and night to hear the end of the story. Every night it was the same. She’d finish one story and start to tell another. This went on for a thousand and one nights, until eventually the King fell in love with her. Why do you want to know?” he asked curiously.

“No reason,” she frowned. Was Hook trying to get her to fall in love with him, or was he just buying time? Either way, she wasn’t falling for that. No more sitting around the fire, listening to his stories.

\----

“No.” she said firmly, when Hook insisted she take his finished shelter and started to construct a new one nearby for himself. “I think it would be better if Henry and I establish our own camp, down there.” she gestured down the beach. If she couldn’t have actual walls between them, at least she wanted a healthy distance.

Hook protested. “Emma, love, there are only three of us on this island. Trust me, it will feel like a very lonely place after a while…”

“I won’t be lonely, I have Henry.” she stated, as though to settle the argument, glancing at her son laying fish traps on the reef.

Hook stared at her in irritation. Her arms were crossed in front of her, with the most determined expression on her face. She really was a very stubborn lass.

“Fine. At least let me help you.”

“I don’t need your help. If you can do this one-handed, I’m sure I can manage with two. Henry will help.”

 _Stubborn and proud_ , he thought.

“Is that enough for you, Emma?” he asked her, tightly.

“Is what enough?”

“Henry.”

“I love my son. I love my family. What else do I need?” she asked.

“You didn’t answer my question. Is looking after Henry, protecting your family, enough for _you_?” he asked, more forcefully, grabbing her arm and pulling her around to face him.

“It has to be!” she hissed back, trying to shake him off.

“You’re a coward, Emma Swan!” his eyes blazing, backing her up against a tree, “You’re afraid to admit to wanting anything for yourself. You’re afraid to love, afraid to be loved. Afraid to trust. You can’t even stand to let someone do anything for you because you don’t want to be beholden to them. You expect every relationship to end the way it did with Bae, so you don’t trust anyone, you don’t let anyone in!”

“Bullshit!” cried Emma furiously, “I let Henry and Snow and David in! And I’ve been trusting you with my son!”

“No - you trust _him_ with me, that’s not the same! You don’t even trust yourself. The second you started to trust me, it scared you so much you chained me to a wall and ran!”

“I am not a coward!” she cried, outraged.

“Prove it!” he challenged, and before she could stop him, he kissed her, hard.

Stunned, and furious, she tried to push him away, but the more she struggled, the more it deepened the kiss. He kissed her until they both struggled for breath, and when he finally had to break away for air, she shoved him so hard he fell to his knees in the sand, and she ran like hell down the beach away from him.

“Coward!” he called after her.


	3. Lost In A Storm

Emma didn’t speak to Hook for days. She pulled together a makeshift camp as best she could at the opposite end of the beach. Hook seethed. Henry acted as go-between, bringing food from Hook to his mother.

“What’s wrong with you?!” exclaimed Henry, exasperated “Why can’t you just admit you like him?” Grown-ups were weird. It all seemed perfectly simple to him.

“Because I don’t! He’s the most infuriating, insufferable, arrogant, untrustworthy son-of-a-bitch pirate, who probably killed Peter Pan and Tinkerbell for all we know!”

“Hey!” came a growl behind her. “Peter was my friend! And don’t you dare insult my mother!”

“And Tinkerbell?”

A scowl crossed Hook’s face. “You have no idea how much trouble that blasted pixie caused.”

“So, you killed her?!”

“Not exactly.” he muttered darkly.

\----

As the days passed, Emma grew increasingly bored and restless. So much for the paradise islands in chocolate commercials. What she wouldn’t give for indoor plumbing and a mug of hot chocolate right now. When they finally got back to Storybrooke, she’d be siding with Mary Margaret in her refusal to contemplate moving back to The Enchanted Forest. Hell, she might even destroy the damn beans herself. After she abandoned Hook up the last remaining beanstalk and chopped it down with Mulan’s sword.

\----

As the days passed, Hook found himself oddly content, but for the storm cloud that was Emma at the other end of the beach. He wondered if she’d ever work out what was keeping them there, but he was in no hurry to leave. There were much worse places to be stuck, and although Henry wasn’t the strongest lad in the world, he had his mother’s quick mind and was eager to learn, and Hook found himself enjoying the lad’s company.

\----

As the days passed, Henry despaired of his mother ever moving beyond her distrust of Hook. She still refused to talk to him, and Henry reluctantly acted as go-between, bringing fish and fruit and coconuts and whatever else Hook caught or found for them. He wished she’d go swimming with him so he could show her all the beautiful fish on the reef, and tell her the names Hook had been teaching him, but maybe it was like it had been with Pinocchio, perhaps she just wouldn’t be able to see.

\----

The heat and humidity had been building for days, working their way into every corner of Emma’s being, forcing into her cracks, leaving her anxious and cranky, until one afternoon, the storm clouds began to build up on the horizon, and Hook decided enough was enough. He strode down the beach to Emma’s makeshift camp.

“Emma, there’s a storm coming.”

“I can see that.”

“Have you been caught in a tropical storm before, love? This shelter won’t keep you dry. Let me help you.”

“Leave me alone, Hook. We’ll be fine. Go back to… whatever it was you were doing.”

She tried to pretend she hadn’t noticed him spear fishing in the shallows, using his hook tied to a pole. He’d been at it through the heat of the day, taking advantage of the low tide and the fish trapped in the rock pools. Naked but for the shirt wrapped around his hips for the sake of modesty – hers, rather than his – because he _knew_ she’d been watching, not that she would ever admit it, even to herself. Afterwards he’d gutted and cleaned the fish and spread them out to dry in the sun on a make-shift rack.

He looked comfortable, content, completely in his element, whereas she felt trapped, disoriented, and desperate to get away from this strange world and go home, and she hated him for it. Hated the fact that her son spent more and more time with the pirate, and less and less time with her. That Hook was teaching him things she couldn’t. That she was dependent on him in almost every way. But most of all, she hated that he was doing absolutely nothing wrong, giving her no reason to doubt him, being the perfect bloody gentleman, leaving her with nothing she could legitimately hate.

“You really are a stubborn lass! I take back what I said about you making a good pirate. A good pirate knows when their Captain is giving them an order for their own good.” Hook could barely contain his frustration.

He turned to the boy. “Henry, this shelter isn’t going to hold, you need to get up off the ground and build up the roof with overlapping layers to keep off the rain. Use the beach vines to tie the leaves down, like this.” He used his mouth to hold fast one end of a vine, and his good hand to tie it off. “That’s it. Good boy. At least _one_ of you will stay dry.”

Emma ignored him. He tried one more time.

“Emma, love, this is ridiculous. Please, let me help you.”

“Thank you, Hook, but I’ll be just fine.”

He shook his head in exasperation, starting to walk away. At the last moment he turned back to face her, catching her watching him. “You know, if you keep this up, we’re going to be here for a bloody long time.” he said, “I know this place, I know how to keep you and the boy safe. Why don’t you try something new and trust me!”

“You said that to me once before,” she retorted “just before helping Cora steal the compass, locking me in a cell and leaving me there!”

“Something you could have avoided if you’d trusted me in the first place, and hadn’t abandoned me!” he flung back, furiously, “How many times are you’re willing to keep making the same mistake? For someone so good at spotting lies, why is it so damned hard for you to see the truth?!” He tured away again, and strode back up the beach to his camp.

Henry knew that he'd have slammed the door behind him, if there'd been one. He quite fancied doing it himself. Instead he turned his attention to improving his shelter, Emma impatiently waving him away when he offered to help her.

\----

The storm broke just before sunset, the clouds rolling in off the sea, turning the sky prematurely black. Emma and Henry hunkered down and watched the lightning as it arced across the sky and lit up the sea. It was a spectacular sight, but Emma was still unsettled by her conversation with Hook. As the thunder and lightning rolled overhead, the rain began. At first a few fat drops, and then suddenly it was hammering down. Pummelling, insane, torrential rain that assaulted the inadequate thatch above her head and forced its way through. Henry was curled up safely on his raised sleeping platform, under his much-improved shelter, having fallen asleep almost as soon as he lay down, lulled into slumber by the steady pounding of the rain. Emma cursed the fact that Hook was right again, as the rain thundered down, her shelter rapidly disintegrating around her, leaving her soaked and seething.

Why was this happening? Why was she stuck here? How much longer would she be forced to stay and endure this limbo? How long would she be forced to spend time with this infuriating man?

She sought shelter under a clump of trees, trying to stay out of the rain which hurt when it hit her face, unable to get his words out of her head. _You know, if you keep this up, we’re going to be here a bloody long time_. Keep what up? _How many times are you’re willing to keep making the same mistake?_ What mistake was she making? _Try something new and trust me_. His words rolled around in her head, like thunder, needling away at her until something snapped. _Fine, she thought, fine! I want out! Out of here, out of this situation! I’ll try something new!_ And she began to fight her way through the storm towards his camp.

\----

The rain thundered down so loud it was impossible to hear himself think. Hook was restless. Storms always made him uneasy. He wondered if Emma was causing the storm, summoning it unconsciously as she wrestled with her demons. Or had he got it wrong? Was this place about something he needed to learn, not Emma? Or maybe Henry? The boy seemed content, but what chance did he have with Rumplestiltskin as a grandfather and an adopted mother and grandmother who were sworn enemies? No wonder he spent so much time with the cricket.

Hook was so lost in trying to hear his thoughts above the sound of the rain, that he didn’t notice the bedraggled figure working its way up the beach. But suddenly he was aware of Emma’s presence.

She stood there in the rain, blinking at him, soaked to the skin, suddenly unsure what she was doing there. She looked half drowned, her blonde hair clinging to her like seaweed, her clothes plastered to her skin. He reached out to try and pull her inside, but she sidestepped.

“Emma, for heaven’s sake, come inside!” he cried in exasperation, but his voice was lost in the storm.

She stared at him defiantly, angrily, but there was something else. He struggled to keep up with emotions he could see running across her face. Fear? Desperation? Exhaustion? Confusion? And suddenly it settled upon him: she was lost. That look he knew.

Hook went out and joined her in the rain. It pounded down, battering, relentless, and he closed his eyes for a moment, enjoying the cold shock of it on his skin. Opening his eyes, he took another step towards her, and this time she yielded as he reached out to her, pulling her into his arms.

She felt the tears come, but she didn’t fight them. She let them fall, realising they weren’t tears of anger and frustration after all, but tears of release. She willed herself to stop thinking and just let herself feel. The rain on her skin, the damp material of her clothes, the steel of his hook pressed against her back, his hand on her face, his breath on her neck, his eyes burning into her, and the suddenness of his mouth against hers, surprising her. An ache, a need. Suddenly she realised that it wasn’t Hook she’d been fighting against all along. It was this. The feeling of wanting, needing something, someone. The aching loneliness she’d tried to keep hidden inside her, the fear of opening herself up, letting anyone see the emptiness.

Hook knew all about emptiness, he knew about feeling lost, he knew what it was like to have love torn from your grasp and fill yourself up with rage. He’d seen that bleakness in Emma the first time they met, and that’s why, no matter how often she ran from him, how often she tried to leave him behind, he couldn’t let her. She’d made him feel something again, and he needed it as much as she did. They’d seen through each other, right from the start, and as much as it had scared her, he welcomed it. He kissed her more urgently, his tongue seeking entrance, his hand tangling in her hair, trying to draw her closer.

She closed her eyes in surrender and leaned into his kiss, turning the tables on him, taking the lead. Her fingers twisting in his hair, his shirt, trying to pull him to her. He resisted, pulling her back instead, under his roof and out of the rain. She kissed him more urgently, and Hook backed her up against a pole, his hand pushign aside her shirt, drawing a gasp from her as his fingers brushed her skin. There was no going back from this, they both knew they were powerless to stop now. Every touch was like an electric current, as though the storm was playing out inside them. 

Emma tore at Hook’s clothes, his skin, his hair, fighting to get closer as fiercely as she’d recently fought against it. They fell to their knees in the sand, pulling each other’s clothes off, Emma feverishly helping Hook as he struggled with her buttons. He pulled her towards the makeshift bed, pulling his leather coat across the woven sticks and leaves, and lay her down on it. For a moment he knelt there, staring at her, wondering if she was real or just a cruel figment of his frustated imagination, and then she reached up and pulled him down to her, and they lost themselves in each other.


	4. The Wake of Shame

When Henry woke, the storm had abated and the morning was clear and calm. He could see the waves crashing out on the reef, and there were leaves and branches everywhere, but his little shelter had stood up firm against the storm.

He looked around for his mother, but she was nowhere to be seen, her shelter all but washed away by the storm.

“Mom!” he called, anxiously, “Mom, are you okay? Where are you?” He looked around the camp, but there was no sign of her. If only she’d listened to Hook, allowed him to help her!

“Mom!” he called more loudly, and started off down the beach towards Hook’s camp.

“Hook!” he yelled, stumbling down the beach in his hurry, “Hook, help me, Mom’s missing!”

Hook woke with a start. He could hear someone calling his name. “Henry?” He felt Emma stir in his arms, and tried to untangle himself from her. His hookless arm was still curled beneath her and had gone to sleep, but he managed to retrieve his shirt from the ground with his right arm and hastily pulled it around her. There was no need to traumatise the boy, seeing them both naked. As Emma shifted, he tried to pull his arm out from beneath her, but it was no use, without his hook he’d never get his pants on in time anyway, so he pulled the flap of his leather coat over his hips and stayed put.

“It’s okay, Henry, she’s safe, she’s here.” he called out, just as Henry appeared on the edge of his camp.

“Mom? Hook?” Henry’s eyes widened. His mother was lying on Hook’s bed, wearing his shirt, the pirate lying beside her. Her clothes were scattered on the sand. He stared, astonished, his mouth opening and closing in surprise, but no words coming out.

 _Grown-ups_! he thought, in exasperation. _One minute they can’t stand each other, the next minute_ … he turned away to hide his embarrassment.

Hook, who had an unfortunate tendency to laugh at inappropriate moments, had to stifle a chuckle. Well, this was awkward…

“The storm scared her, she needed some company.” he offered lamely.

“Seriously?!” said Henry, finding his voice again, “that’s what you’re going with?” he sounded exactly like his mother, “I know you like her, and I know she likes you, however much she might deny it, and I know what grown-ups do when they like each other. I’m not stupid!”

Hook looked at him, appraisingly. “No, you’re not.” he said, allowing the chuckle he’d supressed earlier to escape him. He felt Emma stir again as his chest rumbled against her “Can you give us a moment lad?”

Henry nodded and disappeared from view.

“Henry?” murmured Emma, feeling the warmth of someone next to her.

Hook sighed. “No, just me. Good morning, beautiful.” he whispered into her ear, kissing her neck.

Emma sat bolt upright, sending the coat flap flying, leaving Hook completely naked and his shirt slipping from her shoulders. She grabbed at it, trying desperately to cover herself. He grinned at her, “Bit late for that now, lass.”

She made a face at him. “I thought I heard Henry, was he here? Did he see us?!”

“Aye lass, he did. But I covered up all the important bits.”

“Shit!” cried Emma, mortified at the thought of her son catching her in bed with Hook, or any man for that matter, the memory of catching Snow and David in bed together still uncomfortably raw in her mind.

“He was going to find out sooner or later, love. Or were you planning to pretend this was a one-off, and you still don’t like me?” his voice was teasing, but his eyes were serious as he brushed his fingers against her face.

She looked at him, this impossible man, who drove her crazy in all the wrong ways, but all the right ones too. She searched his eyes, trying to look into the depths of him. He belonged to the sea, Killian Jones. It ran in his blood, it reflected in his eyes. Last night they’d been as dark as surface of the ocean, reflecting the night sky, this morning they were as light as the shallow waters of the bay. She saw no deceit there, only hope, and possibility.

“No.” she said softly, feeling his sigh of relief as he let out the breath he’d been unconsciously holding. She kissed him, gently, a promise, and for a moment they leant against each other, relaxing into smiles.

A discrete cough alerted them to Henry’s return.

“Henry!” Emma cried, jumping up as quickly as she could without losing the cover of Hook’s shirt, which fortunately was long enough to fall past her thighs. She stopped just short of him, registering the smirk on his face. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah, I’m fine Mom… _you_?”

Hook looked on amused as Emma flushed scarlet. She nodded. Wasn’t Henry supposed to be embarrassed, not her? Nothing in the last year of learning to be a mother had prepared her for the particular shame of suddenly being a not-so-single parent. She wondered how Regina dealt with it... oh yeah, she made Graham climb out of the window. Well, she wasn’t Regina, and there was no window to make Killian climb out of, so she was going to have to front up to it.

“Henry…” she started, but her son cut her off.

“It’s alright Mom, I know you like him, and it’s not like I don’t know about sex.”

Emma stared at him, speechless, her blush spreading like wildfire.

Killian couldn't help but laugh, but decided to rescue her. “Henry!” he said cheerfully, leaping to his feet, “Let’s go find something nice for your Mom’s breakfast!”

Henry raised his eyebrows in a fair imitation of his mother. “You might want to put some pants on first.” he suggested.

Killian looked down at himself in horror. “Damnation!” he cursed loudly, quickly turning his back on Henry, and shuffling around in the sand trying to find his pants.

Emma turned to look at him, a laugh rising up inside her. How much more could they mess this situation up?!

She couldn’t help herself. “Nice ass!” she called out and dissolved into giggles.

Killian turned to glare at her, but at the sight of her shoulders shaking with mirth, started to laugh himself. Henry stood and watched them incredulously as the two laughed helplessly. _Grown-ups!_ he thought again, shaking his head. He really didn’t understand them at all. Hook and his mother liking each other might actually turn out to be more annoying than when they were fighting! 


	5. Lost Boys

Emma and Henry moved back up the beach to Hook’s camp, and the three of them got to work, building a new shelter, close (but not too close) for Henry. The evening stories around the fire resumed, and soon became a ritual. Mostly the stories were Hook’s, but sometimes Emma told stories of her time as a bondswoman, chasing down criminals. Hook made a mental note to look for that red dress of hers when they returned to Storybrooke…

Even Henry took a turn, telling Hook about all the different versions of Peter Pan and Hook (he’d seen them all) and how the Land Without Magic saw the Captain.

“Lies!” he inevitably proclaimed, leaping up furiously. “Rubbish! None of it was like that. Except Tinkerbell. Wretched pixie!”

Emma couldn’t help but laugh at his outrage, which only made it sting the more for him.

“So tell us the _real_ story!” she suggested.

So, one night, he did.

“I didn’t grow up in the Enchanted Forest”, he began, “I grew up in the Land without Magic.”

“Really?” Henry interjected in surprise.

“You did?” asked Emma.

Hook silenced them. “This is a very long story, and if you interrupt all the time…” Henry mimed zipping his lips together and Hook continued with a laugh “In England.”

“Edward James Kieran Jones was born in England in the 1670’s, and named after his father, Kieran James Edward Jones. He grew up in a beautiful country house in Hampshire. His mother’s family was well off, owning several country estates and some fledgling plantations in the colonies. His father’s family were shipping merchants, trading in India and the Orient, which is how the two families met, and which he stood to inherit. His father travelled often, and was gone for many months at a time, but whenever he returned, he came back with gifts and trinkets. Jewellery and ornaments, tea and spices, for his wife, Lillian, and little treasures for young Teddy…”

“Teddy?!” Emma nearly choked.

“Tell anyone that, and I’ll be forced to kill you both.” He said, trying not to laugh himself.  

“… a globe, a compass, a spy-glass, other things from his travels. Teddy would sit and listen for hours to his stories of far-off places, and begged his father to take him with him when he was older. Having no brothers or sisters, to share them with, he’d take the stories his father told him, and weave them into tall tales to entertain the children of the workers on the estate.

It was an idyllic, privileged childhood. Teddy wanted for nothing, and grew up expecting to take over the estate and his father’s business. His good manners and easy charm made him popular with the servants, and after his daily lessons he could often be found with the groundsmen, out on the estate, learning to ride, hunt, and farm. He loved the thrill of the chase, but hated to actually kill anything. The first time he had a stag in his sights, an expected rite of passage for a young man, he couldn’t kill it.

From an early age, Teddy had a lively imagination and an aptitude for invention of both stories and contraptions. An aptitude encouraged by his tutor, a retired officer of the Royal Navy. He’d lost his leg below the knee, in battle, and was unable to continue his career in the navy, but he never let it hold him back in any other way. He had a wooden leg, and managed very well. Still able to ride and shoot and sail.

Between his father’s stories, and those of his tutor, he developed a fascination with the sea, and begged his father for a boat to learn to sail on the sheltered inlets of Southampton Water. Unfortunately even the slightest waves made young Teddy terribly seasick, and being a poor swimmer, he feared being tossed into the cold waters of the sea.”

Emma stared at him curiously. This sounded nothing like the confident, arrogant pirate she’d gotten to know, and had taken such a long time to like. She’d taken a Psych class, which she found very helpful in her work as a Bondswoman, so she knew that talking in the third person was a sign of disassociation, but she still sensed he wasn’t lying, so she kept quiet, and let him continue his story, pulling Henry closer, and letting herself fall under the spell of Hook’s lilting voice.

“His mother was a beautiful, but sickly, and slightly distant woman, who loved her husband and her son dearly, but still mourned the loss of a stillborn daughter, making it hard for her to show her affection. When her husband was gone, she would take to her bed and rarely leave the house, or indeed, her room, until his return. Consequently, Teddy spent much of his time in the mornings and evenings with his mother’s nurse maid, and the housekeeping staff, whose simple affection and earthy humour, helped compensate for the distance of his parents.”

Hook’s expression darkened. “One day, his father didn’t return, and they received news that his ship went down in a storm off Tangiers. His mother was distraught, and went into a rapid decline, her already frail health quickly failing her.” He paused for a moment, remembering. “Shortly before she died, her younger brother came to take charge of her affairs. Her father’s will left the estate and his share of the shipping company to Teddy when he came of age, at 17, but until then, everything was placed into the _trust_ ” he spat the word “of his uncle, his mother’s younger brother.

Not long after that, his mother died. Teddy couldn’t remember what the doctor said killed her, but the real cause was a broken heart. He was twelve. His uncle’s family took him in, but their lives were very different. They lived in a large townhouse in Norwich, with no grounds to speak of. There was nowhere to ride or hunt or fish. Life was lead indoors, at dinners and tea parties and dances. For someone raised in the country, it was hell. Teddy tried to fit in, but in truth, he hated it. Everything except the dances. He learned the fiddle and used to love to play.”

He closed his eyes and hummed a tune, “I used to play for Milah and the crew… until this.” He waved his hook with loathing. “Anyway, I digress.”

“So, there he was stuck with his uncle’s family, and it soon became obvious that the uncle was a crook. He sold off Teddy’s family estate and squandered the money away. Then he started to dismantle his father’s fleet. By Teddy’s fourteenth birthday, most of it was gone, along with the happy, carefree boy he once been. He became angry and bitter, fighting with his uncle, taunting his cousins. His only joys in those years were flirting with the housemaids and playing his fiddle.”

“He became devious and manipulative, realising he could play his mother’s family off against each other, trading favours with his cousins and aunt to get what he wanted. Forced to trade for small pleasures – a chance to go riding, a new bow for his fiddle. Playing at a dance, escorting his cousins to the theatre, hiding behind a façade of boredom and arrogance, but it was the only way to get what he wanted.”

He hesitated, a deep shadow passing over his face, glancing nervously at Emma, unsure about whether to say what happened next in front of Henry. Emma could see him wrestling with himself and tried to catch his eye, but Hook looked away, taking a deep breath before continuing.

“Teddy was fourteen when he began to notice the way women looked at him. Not just the housemaids, but his cousins, his aunt. The other young men around them were pale and dull, and Teddy was very different, wrapped as he was in dark, brooding anger. The girls seemed to like that edge of danger that surrounded him. He had no interest in them, preferring to spend time with the servants, whose company was infinitely preferable. One day, his aunt caught him messing around with one of the housemaids. So she began to blackmail him. Playing him at his own game of trading favours. Except the favours she demanded were of a more intimate nature.” he said bitterly. “She wasn’t a particularly bad person, but she was stuck in a loveless marriage, with little to entertain her, and she used Teddy as a diversion.”

 _Fourteen?_ Emma thought in horror, before realising, she’d only been a year or two older herself, not long before her sixteenth birthday, the first time she slept with a boy. A foster-brother. At least though, she hadn’t been coerced into it. She realised, with a pang, that both she and Killian had been barely a few years older than Henry was now. _Children!_

“One day he woke up and looked at himself in the mirror, and realised he didn’t know himself anymore. And that’s when he decided to run away. He packed a few things, some clothes, his fiddle, and stole as much money as he could find from his uncle, and fled to London.” He abruptly switched back to the first person. “It wasn’t really stealing,” he added “it was my father’s money my uncle was living off!”

“For a while I had enough to get by, but when the money ran out, I took to the streets with my fiddle, playing for coins to feed myself. Until I woke up one morning to find most of my clothes and my fiddle gone. So I took to stealing, and found I was surprisingly good at it. I kept myself clean, and in my fine clothes with an educated accent, nobody suspected they were about to be robbed.”

Emma shifted uncomfortably, thinking of her own past, and her mother’s. Both of them forced into stealing.

“Then one day, I found myself desperately hungry, trying to steal a loaf of bread from a market stall, not realising that someone else had the same target in mind until the stall-keeper spotted him and made a grab for him. In a panic, I grabbed the loaf, gave the stall-keeper a shove and fled. The other boy got away and chased after me, and we ran and ran until we collapsed on the steps of a church laughing. I tore off a piece of the loaf and offered it to him. We sat there eating, until all the bread was gone and then introduced ourselves.” Hook smiled and suddenly his face was transformed into that of the teenage thief. “He said his name was Peter, and solemnly held his hand out to me to shake. I hesitated to give my real name, in case my uncle was looking for me, so I introduced myself as Killian Jones.”

“After your father Kieran, and your mother, Lillian!” Henry exclaimed. Hook nodded. Smart kid.

“I asked Peter if he had a family name, and he shrugged. Said he didn’t remember. So, I tapped him on the shoulder with an imaginary sword and said ‘Then I hereby name you Peter _Pain’_ in honour of how we met. Unfortunately, Peter’s upbringing wasn’t as privileged as mine so he didn’t know any French, but when I explained he laughed and said he did love bread, so it stuck.”

“Wait,” laughed Emma, “You’re telling me that Peter Pan got his name from a loaf of bread?!”

Hook gave her a mischievous smile. He was getting to the part of the story that was easier to tell. “I ended up joining Peter’s band of young urchins, The Lost Boys they called themselves, and for a year or so we roamed the streets of London, creating mayhem. My ability to pass myself off as the son of a gentleman made it easier for all of us, but there never seemed to be enough food. Then, one day, when Peter and I were out scoping targets, we met this strange young man in a hat, Jefferson. He asked us where he was, and appeared lost and confused, so we invited him to join us. He regaled us with stories of far off lands, and claimed to be able to travel between them. We didn’t believe him of course, but he offered to take Peter and I with him, and that’s how we travelled between worlds for the first time, and found ourselves in Neverland, the most beautiful place we’d ever seen.

Peter and I loved it - the sheer beauty of the place such a stark contrast to the dirt and grime of London. Gradually we shifted our small, but growing band, to Neverland. Back then, the hat had different rules, many could go through, only one had to come back, but as the hat aged, its magic changed. Neverland was paradise, but nothing edible grew there, so it required frequent trips, usually by Peter and I, as we were the least likely to get caught, back to England for food. I began to steal seeds and animals, and taught the boys how to farm.

We travelled to other worlds too, including The Enchanted Forest. Despite all my father’s stories, I’d never imagined such things as we saw in our travels. I wished that I could tell him of our adventures. As my seventeenth birthday approached, I became increasingly angry about my uncle’s theft, and became determined to steal back the last of my father’s ships, but we needed a way to get it back to Neverland. Jefferson had heard stories about magic beans which could create portals big enough to sail a ship through, so we set off to find them. I met this girl, claiming to be a maid for one of the giants, and managed to, er…” he hesitated, “ _charm_ one of the magic beans out of her, and then we returned to London to claim my father’s ship.”

“ _The Jolly Roger!”_ Henry exclaimed. ”So she really is your ship, I mean you didn’t steal her?”

“No!” Hook looked scandalized. “She really is my ship, but she’s not the same one I stole back from my uncle. That was _La Jolie_ – which is French for The Pretty One. Not the best name for a pirate ship, but then, we weren’t pirates back then. When we eventually lost her, I commissioned a replica out of enchanted wood, and we named it _The Jolly Roger_ , after the pirate flag, which seemed like a better name for who we’d become. Anyway,” he continued “now we had the ship, and a portal, which made it easier to transport food and other goods between Neverland and other worlds. We stopped returning to England to avoid recognition, and travelled mainly between magical realms. Jefferson disappeared, but we no longer needed the hat anyway.”

“I thought magic beans only worked once? How did you manage to keep travelling between worlds?” Emma asked, confused.

“Aye, that’s what most people think.” said Hook, “but when you sprinkle them with pixie dust you can retrieve them after you’ve passed through the portal, and use them over and over again. Extraordinary stuff, pixie magic.”

“Of course, every time we left Neverland, we aged a little, and Peter began to tire of it. He wanted to stay young forever and was increasingly reluctant to leave. I began to travel on my own or with some of the other boys, and soon they were looking to me as their leader rather than Peter, which put a strain on our friendship. And that bloody pixie Tinkerbell and her crush on me didn’t help, either.”

“So, Tinkerbell is real?” cried Henry delightedly.

“Not any more.” Hook muttered. “You have no idea what havoc one small pixie caused.”

“What happened to her?” asked Emma curiously.

Hook didn’t answer.

“The last time Peter left Neverland, he returned with Wendy. She was the first real girl that came to join The Lost Boys, and you can’t imagine the trouble it caused…”

“What about Tigerlily?” asked Henry.

“Who?” Hook frowned. “Oh, the Indian girl from your stories? I thought I explained that the reality was not much like those tales? There were natives in Neverland, but they kept themselves to themselves as long as you stayed out of their territory. It was a shame really, maybe we could have learned what could be eaten, but perhaps they didn’t want to share.”

“Anyway, after Wendy, suddenly everyone wanted a girlfriend of their own. It was alright for me, I travelled often and never had any trouble meeting women, but for the boys who remained behind…  everyone wanted to leave and look for women as well as supplies. And women wanted pretty things, so we started stealing more, and taking more risks. It became harder to control the crew, and eventually I found myself in charge of a ruthless band of pirates rather than a group of lost and hungry boys.”

“Truth be told, I was always up for a challenge and adventure. But the fun started to go out of it. My anger at my uncle, and the life he’d stolen from me, returned with a vengeance, and I lead my crew into increasingly dangerous situations. Between the Ogre Wars and The Giant Wars, it became harder to steal food and supplies. Tinkerbell grew angry with me for spending more and more time away, and she decided to put an end to it by removing her magic from the bean. Unfortunately we didn’t realise this and found ourselves stranded in The Enchanted Forest. We searched high and low for the way home, or for another bean, and that’s what brought us to Milah’s village.” Hook paused, suddenly reluctant to continue.

“My grandmother!” Henry exclaimed. “What was she like? Was she pretty?”

Hook didn’t answer immediately. “Aye, of course she was pretty.” he eventually said quietly, but found himself struggling to recall her features. “But she didn’t love your grandfather and was very unhappy. She came to my ship one night and asked me to take her away with us. I was reluctant.” He paused, “I’d become involved with married women before, but none had actually come to my ship and begged me to take them with me. I didn’t love her then. That came later. But she pleaded. Rumple was just a hapless shepherd, and the local coward, and I felt sorry for her, and understood her desire to leave that life behind her, so I let her join my crew. But after a while we became lovers, and for nearly ten years we sailed together, looking for treasures and searching for a way back to Neverland.”

Hook stopped, a shadow passing over his features. Emma knew the next part of the story, but after their recent encounter with Cora, he had no desire to go over it again. He skirted over the details, telling Henry only the bare bones of the story. That Rumplestiltskin had killed Milah, and taken his hand.

He talked about how he and the crew had finally returned to Neverland, after Milah’s death, describing the growing tension between him and Peter, the difficulty of returning with a crew so many years older than those who’d stayed behind, the growing anger and hatred in his heart towards Rumplestiltskin, how his anger at Tinkerbell’s betrayal and refusal to acknowledge her, had slowly killed her.

“You really killed her?” asked Henry, uncomfortably.

“Aye. Not intentionally, but the responsibility is mine.” Hook replied honestly. Henry looked disappointed.

“I’ve never claimed to be a good man, Henry” he said simply. “I’ve always done whatever I thought I had to do to get what I wanted.”

“Does that include my mother?”

“Henry!” cried Emma, startled at her son’s question.

Hook looked at her and then back at Henry “It’s a fair question” he said “Yes. Half the things I’ve done since I arrived in Storybrooke, have been to get your mother’s attention.”

“And it doesn’t bother you that you’ve slept with my grandmother _and_ my mother?”

“ _HENRY!_ ”

He ignored her. “ _Well_?” he demanded.

“I’m over 340 years old Henry! I slept with many women before I met your grandmother, and a few since. But I’ve only _loved_ two of them. And yes, they happen to be your grandmother, and your mother. And yes, it bothers me, but not half as much as the fact that I’m more than 300 years older than your mother, or that I’ve spent most of those 300 years thinking about how I would avenge your grandmother’s death by killing your grandfather! Or that if your grandmother hadn’t run away with me in the first place, your grandfather might never have become The Dark One, Bae might never have left him, and he might never have met or left your mother and they might never have had you! Yes, _all_ of that bothers me! But you don’t choose who you fall in love with, it just happens! And I’m not sorry that it did!”

Emma and Hook stared at each other. These were the unspoken things they hadn’t yet dared to discuss. But there they were. Everything that made this whole thing so improbable, and the one thing that made it possible.

Henry said nothing. Captain Hook loved his mother. And judging by the way she was looking at him, she loved him too. Frankly, it was all a bit weird, but if it meant none of his family members killing each other in the near future, that was a good thing, right? Although there was still his adopted mother’s hatred of his surviving grandmother, and his father’s fiancée’s possible desire to kill all of them to contend with. Suddenly this thing between Hook and his mother didn’t seem quite so weird after all. But it was quite enough for one day. “I’m going to bed” he yawned, and got up.

Killian and Emma barely noticed him walk away, they were still staring at each other.

“This is seriously fucked up, isn’t it?” said Emma.

“Aye.” He agreed, chuckling softly. “There’s no hope for us. We’re doomed.”

“Can’t you be serious for a moment?” She flicked sand at him, playfully, and he pulled her into his arms.

“Love, I’ve been serious for 300 years. Aren’t I allowed to enjoy you a little bit now that I’ve found you?”

“You’re allowed to enjoy me a lot. But, don’t change the subject!”

“I’m in love with you, Emma, the rest is just details.”

She was silent for a moment, thinking about what he’d said, realising how much she liked him saying it, even with everything she knew about him, the things she’d learned tonight, and the things she’d known before. For once, she wasn’t running for the hills.

“Everything you told us tonight, that really happened to you, didn’t it?” It wasn’t so much a question, as a statement to show that she believed him, but he answered her anyway.

“Aye. Apart from one thing... I’ve actually loved _three_ women.”

Emma laughed. She sensed he was teasing her, but decided to play along. “Who’s the third?” she asked.

He hesitated, “Jolie. My first true love.”

“The _cat_?”

“No, you daft lass, Jolie, my father’s ship, not Julie!” he grinned at her confusion “Told you it wasn’t what you thought!”

She laughed at him, “You’re an idiot” she sighed.

“I’ve been called worse!” he said, kissing her.

“Can we start that enjoying me thing, now?” she murmured.

“About bloody time, lass!” he grinned, grabbing her hand and dragging her up to his shelter.


	6. Growing Divide

Over the next few weeks, Emma gradually teased more of Killian’s past out of him, and started to share more of her own. Telling him about what it was like growing up in foster homes, her first sexual encounter, how she ended up living on the streets until she met Neal. She didn’t talk much about him, reluctant to say too much in case it soured the fun she was having with Killian. And they _were_ having fun. Fun in the forest, fun in the stream, fun on the rocks, fun up behind trees, fun anywhere and everywhere they could get away from Henry for an hour here or there. It had been a long time for both of them.

Everything about their relationship was complicated, except the reality of it here. Here, they could just be themselves, without pressure or expectation. They were behaving like a couple of teenagers, and nobody cared.

That wasn’t strictly true. Henry was acutely embarrassed by his mother’s behaviour, but he’d never seen her so happy or relaxed and it was definitely better than the alternative. But he still had questions, lots of them. He wanted to know more about his grandmother and his father. But he was a little afraid to go there for fear of upsetting his mother, so one evening as they all sat around the fire, he tried another tack.

“Why did you fall out with Peter?” he asked Hook. “Was it just about growing up?”

Hook thought about it for a moment. “In a way, yes, that was a big part of it. Peter didn’t want to grow up, so he chose not to. I kept leaving Neverland, because I felt I had to. In the same way that my father accepted responsibility for all the workers on his estate, I felt responsibility for the Lost Boys. The differences in our upbringing, our education, that didn’t matter at first. We were partners in crime, kindred spirits, adventurers, dreamers - Peter, Jefferson, and I. But as time passed, we started to grow apart.

We loved different things about Neverland. Peter loved the freedom, the lack of responsibility, the fact that we would never have to grow up or grow old. Jefferson loved being in a place where people accepted him and nobody forced him into doing things he didn’t want to do. And I loved the sheer beauty of the place, and the challenge of turning it into a home for us all. Developing the farm, the irrigation system, the turbine to power the mill, making sure we had food. I loved that challenge, but it held no interest for Peter. He had always been the unspoken leader, the one who fuelled their dreams of adventure, but gradually some of the boys began to turn to me for more practical advice, and our tribe began to split in two.”

Hook was silent for a moment, remembering, and Emma thought back to her relationship with Neal. He’d always been the one with the dreams and ideas. She’d been the one who’d done most of the stealing, not really expecting much else.

“Things really began to change after I acquired _La Jolie_ , and Jefferson left. I’m not sure we’d ever realised it, but he’d always been the one that trod the middle ground between us. He’d always been the serious one among the three of us, and after he left, that role fell to me. I looked for him, you know, when I was searching for Rumplestiltskin. I heard he met a girl on his travels, married and settled down, had a daughter. But by then, I’d changed so much, and was so full of hatred, that in the end I chose not to go and see him.”

“He’s here,” said Emma, “I mean, in Storybrooke! He keeps himself to himself for the most part. I don’t know what happened to his wife, but he has a daughter, Grace.”

“She’s a friend of mine” interrupted Henry, with a hint of pride in his voice, which strongly suggested to Killian that she meant a little more than that to Henry. Emma smiled.

“Are they happy?” Killian asked.

Emma hesitated. “I don’t know. Since he was reunited with Grace I think so, but before then he was a little mad. He got caught up in Cora and Regina’s scheming and it sent him a little loopy. He kidnapped Mary Margaret and tried to force me into creating a magic hat. I didn’t even know I had magic then.”

She frowned, something dawning on her, “But he did. He knew before anyone else realised.”

“He was always like that. A little different and able to see things that other people didn’t. I don’t mean like a seer, premonitions or anything like that, his magic was always unpredictable, it needed something to focus itself on.”

“Like the hats?” said Emma.

“Like the hats. As far as I know, Jefferson is the only person able to make them. He kidnapped you? Did he hurt you?”

“He drugged me and tied me up, but that’s about it. I managed to knock him out and escape.”

“Hmmm, you’re very good at that.” Killian muttered darkly, unconsciously rubbing the back of his head with his hand.

Emma shrugged, smiling sheepishly, “It’s a talent!”

“Hey,” Henry interrupted “Can we get back to the story? You were talking about falling out with Peter.”

“Was I? Oh yes.” Hook sighed. “So our tribe of Lost Boys began to split in two. Those who stayed behind with Peter and Wendy, and those who followed me on _La Jolie_ or kept the farm going. It wasn’t a big divide. We were all still relatively young, we all still loved adventure. It was only after some of us got stuck in The Enchanted Forest for twelve years that things really changed. After Milah.”

“How could they not?” he asked himself, quietly, his expression darkening. “Everything had changed. All of us had. That’s what dark magic does to you. Changes you beyond all recognition. I returned with a hook for a hand, and a darkness in my heart that didn’t belong in Neverland. Peter hardly knew me. For the second time in my life I found myself turning into someone I didn’t know, and didn’t like, but I was powerless to stop it. I fought with Peter, our arguments increasingly bitter. My crew stayed loyal, and eventually the arguments turned into real battles. The crocodile didn’t just take my hand and my love, he took my friend, my family. Everything but my ship and my crew.”

Hook fell silent, and Emma could find nothing of Killian Jones in his face, only Captain Hook.

Henry asked the question he’d wanted to ask all along “What about my father?”

Hook looked up, and Emma saw the anger in his eyes slowly slip away. He knew she’d been purposely avoiding the subject of Neal, and a part of him didn’t want to know why. But he’d have to tell this story sooner or later, so he took a deep breath and began.

“Bae was already in Neverland when I returned. He’d been there for several years, another one of the Lost Boys. He worked on the farm, looking after the sheep, just like his father had before he became The Dark One. I should have recognised him, but I was so wrapped up in my own misery and anger, I barely even noticed him, I was blind to everything. But he recognised me from the tavern and the tattoo of his mother’s name on my arm. The result of losing a drunken bet with Milah.” The ghost of a smile passed his lips. “Remind me to ask about yours, love.” He said, referring to the flower on Emma’s wrist.

“Nothing as colourful as that,” she said simply. “I had it done as soon as I left detention.” Hook looked puzzled, “Prison for kids. To remind me not to end up there again.”

“Why a flower?”

“Because that’s what I missed most. Trees and grass and sky and flowers. The guy in the tattoo parlour didn’t know how to do the other things.”

Hook made a mental note to bring her flowers if their lives were ever that normal. In the meantime, he settled for pressing a soft kiss to her tattoo, and not letting go of her hand.

“So Bae recognised me. He’d heard the stories about my return to Neverland and that I’d lost someone I loved. It was hard for the boys to understand. We’d all lost our parents, in one way or another, but nobody else had lost someone they loved as an adult. Nobody had even fallen in love with someone the way I did with Milah, let alone lost them. Only the crew had known her, known me with her, nobody else understood. Peter and Wendy didn’t. They were still children. The gulf between us and them continued to widen. Baelfire was the only one to cross that gap.”

“I couldn’t understand why this shepherd boy wanted to join my crew, but he was a hard-worker and I always appreciated that. For the most part the farm was in ruin, only a handful of kids, like Bae were keeping it going and making sure there was enough for everyone to eat. He didn’t tell me his real name. Called himself something else, I can’t even remember now. I still didn’t put two and two together, but I agreed to let him come aboard the ship as long as he continued with his shepherding as well.”

“Both my grandfathers were shepherds and my father too.” Henry mused, “That’s interesting, don’t you think?”

“These things tend to run in families, lad. My father’s family owned a fleet of ships and if it wasn’t for his stories, and wanting to be like him, I would never have overcome my seasickness and learned to sail. Your mother was a thief once, just like her mother before her. Both of them were forced into it, as was I.”

Once again, Emma was reminded of the threads that bound them together, two kids who’d had their childhoods ripped away from them, turning to their wits and the streets, just as her mother had once been forced to do in The Enchanted Forest. Killian had seen it from the start, from their trip up the beanstalk, but it had taken her a little longer.

Hook continued “So Bae joined my crew: the only kid to do so. I should have asked why, but I don’t think he was ready to tell me then, anyway. He guessed his mother had lived on my ship, and being on it, I suppose he felt closer to her. I think he was trying to understand why she left him. I noticed none of this, wrapped up as I was in thoughts of vengeance, but Smee became suspicious, thought perhaps he was a spy for Peter, or after some of the treasure we had hidden away on the ship. One day, he caught Bae in my cabin, and locked him in there.”

“The young man I confronted in my cabin was nothing like the meek, hard-working shepherd boy I’d welcomed onto my ship, he was furious, angry. He knew his mother had run away with me, but his father had told him she was dead. He wanted answers. So I gave them to him. Told him how I’d met Milah and she’d come to me asking me to take her away with me. How we’d fallen in love, about the adventures we’d had together, how happy we’d been, but how the one thing that clouded her happiness was having left him behind. Told him that not a day had gone past that she didn’t think about him, and how I’d tried to take her back to get him, but she couldn’t face him after what she’d done or bear to take him away from his father.”

“He didn’t believe me. He wanted someone to blame. Someone to direct his anger towards, in the absence of his mother and father, and I was convenient. There are some truths that people just don’t want to hear, and hearing that your mother is a coward, is one of them.”

Hook dropped Emma’s hand, to rub his only hand over his face, tiredly. “I shouldn’t have told him, he wasn’t ready to hear it. But I was hurting too. If we hadn’t been looking for Bae, I never would have lost her. Part of me resented him for his part in it.”

“But it wasn’t _his_ fault, any more than it was _yours_!”

“I know that, Emma, but at the time, I was blinded by rage and sorrow, and I couldn’t see straight.” This is what he was afraid of, Emma defending Bae, her feelings for him resurfacing. But to his surprise, she reached for his hand again, squeezing it tightly. For a long time she’d been blinded by her own rage and disappointment in Neal, she was in no position to judge him.

“What happened?” prompted Henry.

“We argued, and he fled back to the farm. I flew into a rage and took the boat out to sea for a few weeks until I calmed down, knowing that when I got back, he’d still be there, wanting more answers. And so he was. But this time I was ready. I knew he wanted to know how about how his mother died. And I knew he wouldn’t want to hear it, but I told him anyway. He deserved to know the truth, so I told him everything. What we were doing back in the village. How I’d lied to try and protect her, how she intervened to save my life, and about the bargain she made with Rumplestiltskin to save our lives in exchange for the magic bean. The one he wanted to try and find his son. And how I’d been unable to save her life, how Rumplestiltskin had killed her, when she told him she loved me, not him.”

Henry listened, intently. “But how did he kill her?” he asked. He still hadn’t heard the full story.

Hook glanced at Emma, uncertain if he should continue. “He saved yours.” she pointed out.

“Point taken.” He turned back to Henry “The same way Cora tried to kill me, and your mother. He ripped her heart out of her chest, and then he crushed it. She died in my arms.”

“And that’s why you want to kill my grandfather? Why you plunged your hook into his chest, to avenge Milah?”

“Yes.”

“How does that solve anything?”

“It doesn’t. I just thought I owed it to her memory. Thought it would make me feel better to avenge her.”

“Did it?”

“Not really, no. Not in the end. Although,” he mused “ it might have done, if I’d succeeded.”

“ _Hook!_ ” warned Emma.

He made a face at her. “Are you telling me, you haven’t once thought how much easier everything would be, without him?”

“We’d still have Cora and Regina and Tamara to deal with!” she pointed out. “We need Gold to help us stop them!”

“What makes you think he will?”

“He’s Henry’s grandfather!”

“And you think that will protect him? You? Any of us? I wouldn’t count on it. It didn’t stop him from killing Milah, or abandoning his own son!”

They glared at each other for a moment, Emma dropping his hand like a rock, tensing.

Henry interrupted. “What happened after you told my father about how his mother died?”

 _Good question_ , though Emma, she needed to know this too.

“He was very angry. Angry with me, angry with his mother, angry with his father, and angry with himself, for having let himself believe his father could change, and for lying to him. Mostly he was angry with his father, and that’s something we had in common. So he stayed, joined my crew. We kept our distance, respected each other’s space, but sometimes, he’d ask me about his mother, and we’d sit and talk, late into the night, keeping her memory alive, fuelling our anger towards his father. He told me about how he’d left. How his father had broken the deal with him, unable to give up magic, even for his son. Sometimes, after our talks, he’d go back to the farm for a while, but inevitably he’d return. And then, one day, he didn’t. One day he was simply gone. He must have found a way to leave Neverland, and not long after, I decided it was time for me to leave too. Time to go and find a way to repay my crocodile. I probably would have left years before, if it hadn’t been for Milah’s son.”

The three of them sat there in silence, until Henry asked “So, you weren’t enemies? You and my Dad?”

“No! We weren’t exactly friends, there was too much history for that, and too big an age difference, but we weren’t enemies. We’d both been hurt by your grandfather, and he knew that both Milah and I had made some bad decisions. But he also knew that I had genuinely loved his mother, and that I’d tried to protect her, even if I failed.”

“Where did he go? After Neverland?”

“I don’t know. The first time I saw him again, was when you,” he nodded at Emma, “knocked me out, and then forced me to take you all back to my ship.” Henry looked disappointed. “Sorry.”

He turned to Emma, trying to lighten the mood, “Are you going to be a bit less violent toward me now we're together?” he asked.

“That depends on whether you behave yourself.”

“If I don’t, are you going to chain me up again?” he asked, his eyes glinting with mischief.

“Hook, that’s my twelve year old son, there…” she warned.

Henry stood up, shaking his head, vigorously “Don’t bring me into this! I’m going to bed.” He virtually sprinted away from them. He really didn’t need to know where that conversation was heading.

Hook chuckled, and Emma shook her head at him in mock fury, “You’re traumatizing my son!” she accused.

“We, Emma, _we_. We’re in this together.” he said, running his hook idly down her arm, and looking her up and down suggestively.

“I’m serious!” she said “Stop it! Keep this up, and I really will have to tie you up again, just to teach you a lesson!”

“Mmmm.” he said, closing his eyes in pleasure at the mere thought of it, “Is that a promise?” Suddenly he was whispering in her ear “I’ll teach you how to tie a good slipknot. That way, when you’re done driving me to distraction, I can return the favour.”

“You’ve done this before, haven’t you?” she accused.

“Maybe. Maybe not. I _have_ been tied up a lot.” he acknowledged “Some of those times might have been more enjoyable than others…”

“You’re impossible!” she protested, half-heartedly trying to push him away, but allowing him to push her back, down into the sand.

“You have _no_ idea.” he growled, propping himself up on his hooked arm, and grinning down at her, running his good hand up beneath her shirt, _his_ shirt, and then down between her legs.

 _No_ , thought, Emma, closing her eyes in pleasure, _but I’m sure hoping to find out_. 


End file.
